Chocos away

Pacing is one of the most important parts of any smartphone gaming experience. A talented developer can work minuscule peaks and troughs into even the smallest of games, making sure our interest remains piqued and our fingers remain busy.

Chocohero, from Com2uS, certainly has pace - it is after all about a blob of chocolate plummeting down a never-ending pipe full of its stranded, snack based friends. It has charm too, and an engaging visual style.

What it lacks is the deep breath moment, the calm before the storm. It's all jumping in, no deep end after the fall.Delicious diving

The game is a twist on the free-running exploits of Canabalt and its ilk, except instead of scampering across the horizontal axis you're tumbling down the vertical one. Platforms and explosives litter your path, and if you stray too far to one side of the screen or the other it's Game Over.

You control the titular hero by tilting the phone, and it's one of surprisingly few examples when the control scheme makes sense. Dodging and swooping with a flick of your wrist adds an urgency to proceedings that fits in with the overall atmosphere of panic.

Your job is to collect your stricken friends while also bagging coins that you can use to upgrade various aspects of the game experience, making bombs more explosive and the friends you save more helpful.Cake walk

There's a variety of different types of platforms and outcrops that impede your fall, each of them doing something slightly different when you crash into them. Some crumble instantly, others disappear after some time, while others still remain solid. Linger too long and you'll drown in a torrent of milk.

The clocks scattered around the level slow time down for a while, letting you gather more coins and friends, and when you've built up enough power you can unleash a superpowered charge that turns you into an invincible blur for a few seconds.

Progression is controlled in stops and starts. The farther you tumble, the more points you receive. The more points you receive, the stronger and faster you are for your next jump. It's a sensible system that rewards players who spend more time in the game without punishing those with a more casual outlook.Chocolate overload

The problem is that while there are plenty of different items thrown at you, as well as the different platforms and hazards, in the end they don't force you to alter the way you're playing. You'll move choco to the left, then move him to the right, trying to scoop up as many little choco buddies as you can.

Com2uS has tried to use objects and power-ups to imbue Chocohero with variety, but the mechanic at the heart of the game is just too repetitive for that to work.

There's plenty of edge-of-the-seat fun on offer, but in the end it's not quite enough. Chocohero is more of a snack than a meal.